


The Healing Process

by dragonlover



Category: Heroes (TV 2006)
Genre: Gen, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-21
Updated: 2008-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:42:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29816196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonlover/pseuds/dragonlover
Summary: Claire self-injures to deal with the grief of her father's death.





	The Healing Process

It is all part of the healing process. Claire laughs bitterly at her joke. There is nothing funny about it.

In her right hand, she holds a small stone she had collected from the beach where she had disposed of her father’s ashes. It is smooth, having been worn away by centuries of waves. On one edge, it flattens into a sharp point, now wet with her blood.

Her left arm is held up in front of her. Three trails of bright red streak down her arm, though there is no sign of any injury. There never is any sign.

She sighs. Pain has become so common over the past few months that she has almost forgotten how it was supposed to feel. Pain free of suffering.

Cut, cut, cut…

Little pieces of pain, of feeling, soar up at her from within the darkness. For a few sweet moments, she vanishes entirely from the abyss of meaningless existence that had swallowed her up. She is nameless, a being doing nothing but existing in a state of pain. Blood, sweet giver of life, trickles down her arm, dripping its sticky red drops in the ocean… where her father is.

And the gashes heal.

And she is Claire again.

And she suffers.

She hears footsteps behind her, and glances to see no one. No friends and no enemies. She wonders if she imagined it, or if they are somewhere out of sight. She guesses that it could be West, come here to offer friendly, meaningless words of comfort. Or it could be Elle, sent here to spy on her. Or kill her. She wonders if she cares.

_Tears pour down her face, two great streaks of liquid, colorless and salty, separating her face into thirds._

_“Don’t worry,” stupid, naïve West tells her. “It will all be better in the end.”_

_And Claire almost feels something like hope._

The footsteps, were they ever there, fade away. Fading, fading… Gone.

She shakes her head, trying to forget about the past. She takes the stone to her wrist once more. And as the crimson liquid trails down her arm, she can’t help but think that it feels something like hope.

It isn’t real, she knows it doesn’t exist. And she can’t help but wonder if it ever did. She was whole once, she felt something then.

But was it real? Was it the truth? Is hope just a lie that helps people sleep?

Meaningless, she knows. These questions can’t be answered. But she can’t help but wonder if she has found escape from a self-delusion. If she has, then she would give anything to be trapped in such a lie once more. If this is enlightenment and freedom, then she would rather live a naïve slave.

She wishes he was still alive. Since he was taken from her, she has not existed. She pretends with each new cut, but it is a false life that springs from blood. The pain is but a shadow of the potency she once knew, a life taken from her.

She has been alone since the trigger was pulled. Even when family, friends stand beside her, she feels no one. West tries to help her but he cannot see her, a thin shadow of what she once was. She has changed too much for his words to apply, to soak in through the skin of what she is, what she has come to be. He can only stumble to speak the words she needs, and is afraid to look into the darkness into which she has descended.

No, Claire knows she is alone, but for the shadow of hope. Through blood and through tears, hope springs from inside her. She holds onto it tightly, but it flows through her grip.

And when she hears footsteps, she hopes that it’s Elle. She hopes for a bullet to enter her mind, ending her suffering spawned from the same devilish source. But a bullet never comes, nor does a lightning bolt.

Because it was never Elle.

Never anyone.

Because she was hoping.

She was never certain.


End file.
